UH’s 2018 legislative recap

Kalbert Young, UH vice president for budget and finance and chief financial officer, shares his analysis of the 2018 legislative session.

The 2018 legislative session adjourned on May 3, with more than 200 bills being passed and moving on to the governor for final consideration. A fair number of these bills impacted the University of Hawaiʻi either directly or indirectly. I’ll highlight just a few of the significant measures to pass the legislature this year.

In 2017, the legislature appropriated funds for the Hawaiʻi Promise Program, which was implemented in fall 2017 as a “last dollar” scholarship program to provide for the unmet financial needs of qualified University of Hawaiʻi Community College resident students. As of today, approximately 1,500 students have benefited from the Hawaiʻi Promise Program. The Hawaiʻi State Legislature passed and approved HB 2501 CD1, which provides an additional appropriation of $700,000 for fiscal year 2019 to support this worthy cause.

The university had other funding requests for operations, programs and initiatives during the 2018 legislature. While some of these areas did receive funding support at the end of the legislative session, many were not funded and others that were funded were not initiated or originally requested by the university.

The supplemental budget bill (HB 1900 CD1) was the single most important measure at the legislature, because a lot of UH’s desired funding initiatives would have been provided via the budget appropriation bill. HB 1900 CD1 passed the legislature and has been transmitted to the governor for his consideration. The table below compares the UH items funded by the legislature vs. what was requested by the Board of Regents and the governor’s proposal when the legislature started in January.

Campus

Description

UHBOR

Governor

Legislature

CCs

Hawaiʻi Promise Program

$700,000

$700,000

$700,000

CCs

Architects / Engineers for Facilities

$273,600

West Oʻahu

Health and Safety / Utilities / Equipment

$781,000

$300,000

$501,000

Mānoa

Facilities

$4,038,848

$1,500,000

CCs

Additional Positions for Security

$1,083,264

Hilo

DKICP-Janitorial and Groundskeeping

$120,495

$120,495

System

Office of Strategic Planning and Development

$500,000

$90,000

Mānoa

Student Success Initiative-Veterans, Filipinos, Mental Health

$575,000

$400,000

$300,000

CCs

Apprentice Lecturer Costs

$260,000

$260,000

$260,000

CCs

Filipino Student Support

$614,920

$350,000

CCs

Veterans Support

$473,108

$473,108

Mānoa

Native Hawaiian Affairs Action Plan

$700,000

$500,000

CCs

Native Hawaiian Student Support

$1,729,908

$500,000

Hilo

Native Hawaiian Development

$260,000

$200,000

$79,000

Hilo

Student Workforce

$200,000

Mānoa

Student Research and Innovation

$535,000

$175,000

Mānoa

Graduate Student Initiative-Phase I

$2,850,000

$621,397

West Oʻahu

Academic Affairs Restructure and Growth

$680,000

$400,000

West Oʻahu

Student Affairs

$446,364

$200,000

Mānoa

CTAHR positions

$960,000

Hilo

Rat Lungworm Research at DKICP

$300,000

Hilo

Hawaiʻi Ant Lab

$200,000

West Oʻahu

Health Sciences Academy

$515,000

CCs

Student Success Initiative

$750,000

CCs

Architects and Project and Construction Managers

$364,800

CCs

Online Learning

$565,372

System

Online Learning

$685,000

Mānoa

Grant in Aid-Hawaiʻi Institute of Pacific Agriculture*

$75,000

System

Grant in Aid-Friends of Ka Leo Hawaiʻi Media*

$150,000

Total

$16,821,507

$6,700,000

$5,795,172

*HRS 42F-101 defines a Grant in Aid as “an award of state funds by the legislature, by an appropriation to a specified recipient, to support the activities of the recipient and permit the community to benefit from those activities.”

There were a few other bills that passed the legislature that will provide some operating funds for the University of Hawaiʻi. For example, there were appropriations of $150,000 for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve and $500,000 for a cooperative study with the Department of Health on sewage contamination. Of note, is the funding for the Hawaiʻi Promise Program, whereas the legislature chose to fund the program for an additional $700,000, but did so outside of the budget appropriation bill so that conditions could be placed on the funding. Total Hawaiʻi Promise Program funding is now at approximately $2.5 million.

In general, I believe the university fared modestly given the amount of legislative attention in the budget. Much of the university’s original request was not funded, and although a sizeable portion of funding provided by the legislature was for areas that were not requested by UH, the funding support should provide some level of progress and improvements.

For capital improvement projects (CIP) and construction of facilities, HB 1900 CD1 provided a modest funding level for the University of Hawaiʻi System to address capital improvement projects and deferred maintenance. This has been consistently a major area of concern for the University. The legislature appropriated a total of $109.9 million in general obligation bonds for the following projects:

Campus

Project Title

UHBOR

Governor

Legislature

Mānoa

Renew, Improve, Modernize (RIM) projects

$139,500,000

Mānoa

Sinclair Library Renovation

$41,000,000

$20,000,000

$700,000

Mānoa

Keller Hall Renovations, design phase

$1,500,000

Mānoa

Athletics (UOH900)

$11,100,000

Mānoa

Cancer Center Annex – Early Phase Clinical Trials Program (UOH900)

$200,000

Hilo

Renew, Improve, Modernize projects

$27,900,000

Hilo

Puako Marine Educational Center, design phase

$1,000,000

Hilo

Hale ʻAlahonua Air Conditioning

$3,000,000

Hilo

Phase II and Phase III of Haleʻōlelo Complex for College of Hawaiian Language

$500,000

West Oʻahu

Renew, Improve, Modernize projects

$3,000,000

West Oʻahu

Relocation of Dental Hygiene Program from UH Mānoa to UH West Oʻahu

$10,000,000

West Oʻahu

Campus Center Extension

$5,000,000

CCs

Capital Renewal and Deferred Maintenance

$25,000,000

$12,000,000

$10,000,000

CCs

Minor Capital Improvement Projects

$10,000,000

$10,000,000

$10,000,000

CCs

Multi-Agency Facility – site of current Wahiawa Public Library

$3,000,000

CCs

HawaiʻiCC – Campus Development, design phase

$2,000,000

$2,000,000

CCs

Leeward CC – Repave Fascia and Replace Walkways Campuswide

$8,800,000

CCs

Maui – Expansion of Culinary Arts Program to Lahaina

$400,000

CCs

HawaiʻiCC – Pālamanui Outdoor Learning Area and Dining Area Improvements

$1,173,000

System

Renew, Improve, Modernize (RIM) Projects

$76,000,000

$64,900,000

Total

$269,700,000

$120,000,000

$109,973,000

As you will notice, significant portions of CIP funding are for items not requested as part of the original budget, and funding for desired project areas is much less than originally requested. However, like the operating budget, the level of legislative funding support will help to make some small progress toward holding the line on building and facilities decline.

Along with the CIP budget, the legislature passed HB 2005 SD2, which authorizes the university to issue as much as $100,000,000 in revenue bonds. This authority could allow UH to finance additional construction and CIP projects, however, the university does not currently have any plans to issue these bonds any time soon since bonds require sufficient revenues to pay future debt service.

The University of Hawaiʻi is thankful and appreciative to the legislature for the support they provided for these capital needs across the UH System. A lot of work still needs to be done and additional funding will still need to be appropriated in order to reduce UH’s deferred maintenance backlog.

The governor has until July 10, 2018, to either sign, veto or allow bills to become law without his signature.